Tear Gas Squad

I've mentioned in the past that I find classic Hollywood's view of Irish Americans a bit hard to swallow. One of the movies that I mentioned in that thread is Tear Gas Squad, which TCM is showing at 5:15 PM on March 19.

Dennis Morgan plays Tommy McCabe, a nightclub singer who as part of his act parodies the police. This ticks off a Jerry Sullivan (Gloria Dickson), the daughter of a real police officer. So, Tommy tries to make it up to the girl by becoming a real police officer. (Really.) He winds up having as an instructor in the academy Bill (John Payne), who is also pursuing Jerry romantically.

The idea is interesting, but this is a B movie. Morgan wasn't quite a star yet, and neither was Payne. So the movie winds up being just as much an opportunity to showcase Morgan's singing, kicking off with his rendition of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling", in the sort of style that I have to admit I don't like. Warner Bros. and the other studios made a lot of fun B movies back in the 1930s and 1940s, but for me, Tear Gas Squad isn't one of them.

Tear Gas Squad is one of those movies that hasn't even been released to DVD by the Warner Archive collection.